U of A cuts back on financial aid for out-of-state students

University of Arizona Provost Patricia Prelock says the UA intentionally changed its enrollment strategy to have smaller, “right-sized” classes, give more access to Arizona students and those who need financial aid, and cut back on merit-based scholarships for out-of-state students.

Prelock told the Arizona Daily Star in an interview Monday that the UA still wants out-of-state students, but is not going to give “significant merit (aid) to every single student.” UA’s fall 2025 enrollment numbers show a 23% drop in students coming from out of state.

The UA can still bring in the same amount of money with fewer students, including fewer out-of-state students, Prelock said. Even though out-of-state students are charged much higher tuition than Arizonans, many weren’t paying the full rate because of how much financial aid the UA was providing based on merit rather than need.

So she said the drop in their attendance has not directly impacted UA’s tuition revenue and finances this fall, the first semester since the university eliminated its $177 million budget deficit through various cost-cutting measures.

“Our strategy was to really look at, how could we afford not to take out-of-state students? Well, we could do that by not giving as much merit (aid) and increasing our in-state students,” said Prelock, who joined the UA in May and is its chief academic officer.

“Our goal was to look at need-based (aid) and keep our merit-based for those students who were serious about coming to Arizona, and certainly give priority to those strong students in Arizona. And, I think it’s exciting to see we almost had a 10% increase in Arizona students in our first-year class,” she continued.

“It’s showing, just in the initial stage, that we are accessing and making affordable education for our students,” which will be “a significant contribution to the workforce needs in the state of Arizona,” Prelock said.

UA’s enrollment this fall of 7,500 first-year students was a 19% decline from a year ago. Among this semester’s first-year students, 62.5% are Arizona residents and 37.5% are out-of-state students.

Its total enrollment of 54,384 students is a decrease of 4% from last year. The majority of the decline is in out-of-state students; there was also a 9% drop in international students. The biggest international declines are in students from India, Kuwait and China, said UA spokesperson Mitch Zak.

Prelock said the university intentionally chose a more “holistic admissions process,” which takes into consideration not just the student’s grade-point average, but also their entire experience and their desire to come to the UA.

“It does not mean we don’t want out-of-state students. We are also increasing our recruiters in other states (where) students have shown an interest in being at the University of Arizona,” she said.

During the aftermath of UA’s financial crisis and budget deficit, revealed in fall 2023, university officials cited increasing amounts of financial aid as a major cause of its financial issues, along with athletics department costs.

Back to homepage

Subscriber Login

Keep reading with a digital access subscription.

Subscribe now

As reported by the Star in February 2024, the UA’s scholarship allowance had grown disproportionately in comparison to gross tuition and fees.

The UA’s plan for dealing with its deficit, announced at an Arizona Board of Regents meeting in December 2023, included cutting merit-based financial aid for out-of-state students.

Tracing back the history, a UA faculty leader said former UA President Robert Robbins wanted to raise the university’s rankings and profile by offering large merit scholarships to out-of-state students, which would cost the UA money but was considered a worthwhile investment.

This strategy meant in-state students were subsidizing out-of-state students, who were paying less than the standard out-of-state tuition, said the faculty leader, who didn’t want their name used.

UA Secretary of the Faculty Katie Zeiders said the idea to reduce merit-based scholarships for out-of-state students was first proposed by shared governance leaders well before current UA President Suresh Garimella’s arrival, and she’s encouraged to see the advice finally implemented.

Zeiders said that while she continues to support merit-based scholarships because the best and brightest deserve recognition and support, the previous UA administration pursued this agenda in two problematic ways.

“First, by prioritizing out-of-state students over Arizona students, and second, by failing to model the year-over-year financial impact of reduced tuition revenue from those students, despite repeated internal calls to do so. This was a serious oversight,” said Zeiders.

“Now, the institution is finally correcting course. But financial need — particularly for Arizona rural students — remains pressing. Imagine the impact if our president chose to redirect his recent $285,000 bonus into a scholarship fund for Arizona students. This would be a real and personal commitment to the land-grant mission,” she said. The Board of Regents approved an annual bonus last week of $285,000 for Garimella.

Lucy Ziurys, a UA Regents professor of chemistry and biochemistry and a faculty senator, said it’s difficult to see what is really going on with the university’s finances without more transparency from the administration.

“Was the extra financial aid really the sole cause of the financial crisis?” she questioned. “The university must have lost some very good, deserving out-of-state students as a result. Wouldn’t maintaining high-quality students take precedent over new administrative hires?”

Jeff Michler, a UA associate professor of agriculture-resource economics, said Robbins’ strategy to grow the student population and improve the quality of students appeared to be working, but that UA’s financial and business officers under the former president weren’t adequately tracking spending on merit scholarships.

“They appeared to not know how much money was going out the door for out-of-state merit aid, which is why we all woke up one morning (in 2023) to the news that UA had spent down nearly all of its cash reserves,” said Michler.